


The Secret Garden

by lisachan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22615579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: There must be a reason why this isn’t what she expected. And it must be because of her.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: COW-T - the Clash Of the Writing Titans





	The Secret Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this week's COWT M2, the prompts of which were serene, snow and darkness.   
> These two are beautiful and heartbreaking and I WILL write fix it fics about them, that's for sure.
> 
> This one isn't, though.
> 
> (Sorry.)

Rey dives into the darkness, and she can see nothing. She’s pretty sure she’s falling, but down where, she just doesn’t know. She can feel him, though – Ben is there, somewhere. Around her. He is the darkness. He’s become the void. She’s falling inside him.

When she opens her eyes she’s somewhere. She doesn’t recognize the place, could be anywhere, it probably doesn’t really exist. He must’ve built it to welcome her, to break her fall with softness. She’s sitting on the grass, which is tender and crisp, and the earth underneath – she can feel it against her fingertips – is barely damp, and sticks to her skin in brown dusty patches.

The sky above her head is clear, and of the bluest blue. There’s a moon eastward, so distant and pale you can see the sky through her. No clouds, no sun. But there’s light.

There’s also a light breeze bringing his scent to her, and she turns in the direction the wind blows, to try and catch a glimpse of him. She can’t see him, though.

She concentrates on her surroundings, then. This is a place she doesn’t know. She wasn’t born into it and she wonders if he was, instead. A place of calm and quiet, a place of serenity. Even now that they’ve fought together, side by side, linked by the Force, even now that they’ve been drained together, that she knows him intimately, like the part of herself he ultimately is, she would’ve expected his reign to be all stone and fire, a reign of constant war.

So there must be a reason why this isn’t what she expected. And it must be because of her.

Trying to center herself, she lies down on the ground and focuses on the sky, so perfect and motionless it makes her miss the clouds. That gentle breeze keeps blowing, and she feels so relaxed, and this place is so quiet. She closes her eyes and little fireflies dance for a moment behind her eyelids. The ghost of a smile lingers on her lips as she lets herself go in the gentle warmth coming off the earth – and that’s exactly when something changes around her.

She feels the shift in the air, in its weight. The Force’s balance gets tipped over and the fireflies die out immediately behind her eyelids – but it’s still warm, it’s still pleasant, no, it’s more pleasant, because now Ben’s here.

Her smile widens and she vaguely thinks that she wants to open her eyes, but it seems like she can’t. So she doesn’t move. She waits for him to come closer, she can see him kneeling down next to her body. How his lips slightly bend into a smile she has never truly seen. The way his hand reaches out for her, caressing her forehead and then her messy hair.

“You have to wake up,” he says. His deep voice changes the color of the air. A color her skin can feel, carried by a touch she can taste, and she can smell his hand, and she can see his voice, and she can hear his scent. 

“I am awake,” she says, curling her lips into an abandoned smile.

He scoffs, amused. He keeps stroking her hair. “Barely,” he says.

“Isn’t it enough?” she asks confused, “Come lie down with me.”

This time, he just laughs. She starts wondering if something’s wrong.

“I can’t,” he says, “Just open your eyes. Wake up. Wake up for me.”

She frowns. She can hear him, she can feel him, she isn’t dreaming, she’s not asleep.

“I am awake,” she insists, and tries to open her eyes and move her limbs to stand up and protest, but she can’t, and then suddenly she’s invaded by an energy that her body recognizes as her own but tastes different, and she knows it’s him, she knows it’s him pulling her up, away from that precious garden, up through the darkness again, and she opens her eyes in a panic and breathes in like she had forgotten how to do it, and he’s there, exhausted, pale, broken and wounded, smiling at her from so close she can see every detail of his face, every scratch on his skin.

Now I’m awake, she thinks to herself. She looks at him and she understands she was dead. She knows he saved her, and she can’t help but laugh, she lets it out because she’s happy, and Ben laughs too, because he must be happy too, and she touches his face, and she can’t help herself, she leans in and she kisses him, because she wants to, because he’s her own, because the connection between them demands it and the bond tying them together has held through all this. That’s why Ben brought her there. To keep her there for as long as he needed to save her. And now she’s back. And he’s here. And so it must be fate. It must be forever. 

And that’s when he bends over and starts fading.

*

When it’s done and over, and nothing but his clothes remain on the ground to testify that he was ever here, she holds those clothes in her arms and cries. They’re covered in blood, and she smears herself with it, and that’s part of him that she can temporarily claim as her own. She will have to wash it off her skin, at some point, wash _him_ off her skin, sooner or later, but not now. Now she needs his blood on her finger, because she can’t feel him anywhere else anymore.

Sobbing quietly, exhausted, heartbroken, devastated and so grateful for ever having had him, she plunges into the darkness again, and searcher for his garden.

But she finds a desolate snow-covered landscape instead.


End file.
